What’s RescueTime?

RescueTime is a time direction &amp; Productivity software company founded in 2008. The RescueTime program runs in the background of your apparatus categorizing your activity, measuring and monitoring.

RescueTime is a free program with a premium update That enables more reporting and attributes like offline time input. It delivers a reporting dashboard with your information diced sliced and sorted into graphs that will assist you manage your own time.

The program relies on Peter Drucker’s (the famous Management consultant) maxim that”what gets measured, gets managed.”

RescueTime requires the tracking of time That you truly track your time so that and makes it automatic and painless — you may be conscious of time use.

That said, there are dozens and dozens of Productivity &amp; time management programs online. What are the real pros &amp; cons of RescueTime? Here’s what I have noticed over the years.

Disclosure — I get referral fees from companies Mentioned on this website. Any data or remarks are all based on my experience as adviser to a paying customer or a paying customer. Desktop Time Tracking Software

Rescuing Your Period

RescumeTime is a productivity tool in the to reiterate Feel that it helps you improve your skills. It gathers data about the apps and sites you use, and then creates reports based on that information.

To Begin, you create an account and set up a Desktop app in your personal computer (s) and optionally a cell app on Android devices. There is no iOS app because the operating system prevents RescueTime from amassing the data it needs to carry out its function. Those apps quietly and invisibly monitor which programs you use and which sites you visit, in addition to the quantity of time you spend on these.

The tough nut to crack is the Way to make sense of all that information. To get the best results, you must customize your accounts from the RescueTime website and tell the app more about what you consider productive versus unproductive activity. The further you fine-tune it to your particular conditions, the better your results. As an example, somebody who works in the financing industry may classify reading financial news on sites such as MarketWatch and FT.com as a productivity task, whereas for me, that’s an unproductive use of time.

You can categorize each program and website on a 5-point Scale of very productive, productive, neutral, unproductive, and incredibly unproductive. You can even categorize activity into work categorizes. For instance, I list Google Docs as quite productive, and I categorized it as Writing, which is a subcategory of Design and Composition. Looking at Redfin.com is very distracting when I am trying to work, and I’ve categorized it as such.

In the desktop app, there’s a simple set of controllers That allows you to pause RescueTime for 15 minutes, one hour, or until tomorrow, giving you easy access to shifting the program off for breaks or days when you wrap up early.

Privacy

When confronted with RescueTime’s proposal –We will monitor Everything you do and give you insights about your customs! –some people might, justifiably, worry about their privacy and the security of information in their hardware. If you work with sensitive info online or keep sensitive information in your computers and mobile devices, you’ll want to read RescueTime’s privacy and safety statements closely.

For everybody else, RescueTime’s privacy policy Contains a summary at the top, only a couple of stiff lines which are worth reading.

If your concerns are somewhat more relaxed and You Just Don’t Want RescueTime monitoring you on the weekend, so you have control over the times and days the app monitors your behaviour. It is simple to set it to just watch your action from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, or whatever program suits you.

Reports

I have used RescueTime for years, and I don’t check my Productivity reports daily. I like to allow the service run in the background so that when I really do want to find a better image of how I have been spending my time, a fantastic quantity of information is awaiting me.

While I do go through the reports, however, they’re Magnificent. I really like the variety, giving you get multiple methods of knowing your productivity and customs, from bar graphs and pie graphs that reveal lump amounts of action, to line items of applications you used.

1 simple but effective piece of advice RescueTime Supplies is an analysis of when during the day you are inclined to be the most productive. I wasn’t surprised to see that my mind peaks in the morning and slacks off after 2:00 p.m., as that fits pretty well with everything I know about my habits. If you’ve never analyzed your productivity, nevertheless, that may be a beneficial revelation for you, one that may help you schedule your days more productively.

The more time you use RescueTime Premium, the more useful the Data becomesbecause you may view your data by day, week, month, or year. And as you might expect, it is possible to toggle which days and times RescueTime records your action so that it turns off automatically on weekends, for example. Desktop Time Tracking Software

Additional Capabilities

Much of the value you get from RescueTime comes in what You make of this information and the way you use that information to affect your behavior. Changing behaviour is tough, but getting rich insights does not have to be.

Among those ways RescueTime makes it easy to understand how To interpret all the information it collects is using a Productivity Pulse score. This daily evaluation, shown as a percent, comes from calculating the percentage of time spent on very productive, effective, neutral, unproductive, and very wasteful jobs. To be clear, no one is advocating you aim to get a 100 percent Productivity Pulse score.

A RescueTime blog post explaining the productivity Score notes that the average score is 67 percent, and the average is 79 percent. The majority of people need to do some job that is not considered”very productive” during their day. The entire purpose of using RescueTime is to help you work out how to focus on productive and very productive tasks if you will need to and perhaps save less productive activities for times when your ability to concentrate has been waning anyway.

Tasks that are productive are not the same thing as distractions. RescueTime has a smart and straightforward feature for controlling behaviour that is unwanted, like getting sucked into distracting websites, too. A feature named FocusTime, when empowered, blocks your ability to access specific websites for a period of time you specify. It requires a little setting up and personalization, but it is quite powerful, after it is ready to set up. As an example, let us say you want to to finish a report, and also to make progress on it, you need to focus hardcore for the next thirty minutes. Switch on FocusTime, and it can prevent you from looking posting on Twitter, checking sports scores, or other sites and activities you deem deflecting.

The RescueTime mobile app has a setting that will Silence your phone whenever you empower FocusTime. Likewise, you may set up other automation with the support of third party providers IFTTTFree at iTunes Store and Zapier to obstruct or silence other distractions. By way of instance, you can create a rule using IFTTT (it stands for”if this, then that”) that says,”When I empower FocusTime, then mechanically set my Slack standing to busy.”

RescueTime also gives you the Choice Idle moment. Any time RescueTime finds that the computer was idle for several minutes at a row, so it pops up a dialogue asking if you’re at a meeting, on the phone, taking break, and so on, and lets you categorize the idle time accordingly.

Pros of RescueTime

Here’s some of the advantages of using RescueTime Over other solutions. Desktop Time Tracking Software

Feature Set

At its heart, RescueTime does something — monitor time. It’s not special, if you look at it like this. Technically, you could do this using a spreadsheet or some of the dozens of programs that are free on the internet.

However, RescueTime’s attribute set is unique because of The way that it tracks time and exactly what it does with all the data (aka, you you’ll actually use).

RescueTime watches that windows currently have Action, looks at the window name, and times the activity in this window. It’s always running in the background watching.

Unobtrustive, automatic tracking that is 100% makes RescueTime rewarding. There is not any friction or barrier to tracking time.

Since RescueTime’s tracking feature solves that Problem, you will have data that’s complete, useful & appropriate.

RescueTime’s other attributes focus on producing their Core feature better. They don’t try to add on features that are complementary like time-tracking &amp; billing for freelancers. They do not attempt to enter any side companies.

They do have a few features Using the monitoring Attribute in an interesting way. The Get Focused! Feature blocks programs when selected from running.

They have alerts and goals that Permit You to pick What you want to occur when X occurs — and RescueTime can do that based on which it is tracking.

I love RescueTime does Offline Time Tracking. Rather than having to search and put in it 100% manually, then you pick a time interval that’s unlogged and fill in the blank.

You can customize the buttons to make logging Offline time quick and easy.

It’s a minimalist feature set — but that What makes it great. It’s simple, simple and well-done.

Pricing and Strategies

RescueTime provides two tiers of service: Lite (free) and Premium ($9 a month or $72 annually ). Firms or organizations that want to use RescueTime across a bunch of individuals pay the exact same speed.

RescueTime Lite offers lots for Somebody Who Has never Monitored his or her period. The app monitors which sites and applications you use, and how much time you spend on or in each of them. You may categorize each app and website you use on a Productive/Unproductive scale, also RescueTime creates a couple of primary reports demonstrating how you spend your own time. Lite members can place weekly goals, such as”spend X hours per week on productive tasks and fewer than Y moments on unproductive products.” It’s possible to find a report email for you. For reports, you are limited to some history.

Subscribers get everything from the Lite plan, Plus reports and features, including an infinite report history. Premium comes with alerts you can enable for if you hit daily objectives. You can more accurately log time spent away from the computer, noting whether you’re in a meeting, on a telephone call, or just out to lunch. Additionally, there is a Get Focused alternative, which lets you block websites for a period of time you place. Desktop Time Tracking Software

Comparing RescueTime’s price to that of other apps Requires an open mind as programs do precisely what RescueTime does. Qbserve is one of the most similar programs you may find, and it costs a flat one-time fee of $40.

We can, but look at more traditional time-tracking Programs for freelancers who typically contain tools for bills. HarvestFree in Harvest is a example. At $12 per individual a month for Premium, it costs more than RescueTime, but it has a very clear return on investment because it helps ensure more accurate billing. How you’ll interpret RescueTime’s reports and make better use of your time as a result is not as clear.

Toggl, another Classic time-tracking app that’s Popular among freelancers, costs $9 per month, and in addition, it gives you tools for monitoring time spent on jobs with charging clients’ usual end goal. Toggl doesn’t contain its own invoicing tools, but it has many integration options for connecting with other invoicing services.

A Couple of apps are nearer to RescueTime in what they have to Provide, such as Slife, although they have a tendency to have fewer features even if they are free (and Slife is).

Either way — RescueTime is a no-brainer pricing-wise. It is totally free to use.

And when you are saved by the reporting/advanced attributes just 1 hour each month then it is paid for itself even if you are only earning US minimum wage.

RescueTime is.

App Quality

A Frequent problem with tracking apps of all kinds is That they must be on. The”always on” feature can cause performance issues on laptops &amp; desktop computers. It can induce battery issues on mobile devices.

But in my experience, RescueTime induces neither. It’s running on my Windows PC, my Macbook Pro, and also my Nexus 5x phone from startup. I have never monitored any performance or battery life problems to the program.

It is well-built and lightweight.

I enjoy the fact that the mobile app doesn’t demand Heaps of permissions that are absurd. It demands access to use data, but doesn’t try to track location, emails, contacts, or some of the privacy violating permissions programs request.

It’s quick to install and syncs using an internet dashboard. It crunches the data if you are on the Premium plan or by next day to the free program, and pulls in data from all sources in precisely the period.

Reporting

What is the point of information if it can’t be interpreted by you Or place it to use? Desktop Time Tracking Software

RescueTime’s reports solves this issue — and in Many ways is the entire point of using the program.

RescueTime’s Dashboard uses vibrant bar graphs and Pie charts to show exactly what you are (and aren’t ) doing.

You can opt to receive emails reports Daily, Week or even month.

And on Top of That, you can dig deep to the Reporting with numerous filters and overlays to find your customs out.

It is really eye-opening to determine that the amount of Time that each task happens.

When I trying to find a marketing agency in Atlanta — The time tracked to Instant Messages and Gchats was astonishing. It altered processes not just for me personally, but also my project supervisors.

Now that I’m on my own I can see the precise time that I devote to jobs that matter. I am able to construct my entire day around those.

And just to reiterate Built-in into the software. The Dashboard is on my default — as well as advanced reports are pre-built.

It’s all seamless, fast and effective so that you When analyzing your time, aren’t ironically wasting time.

Integrations

Among the key selling points of RescueTime is their characteristic set minimalism. They do something and they do it nicely.

That said — many people using their product Have time-based applications requirements. When it’s charging project management, staff time tracking or anything else — your time needs usually do not stop with measuring tracking and categorization.

To solve that Issue, RescueTime’s applications Integrates with a massive assortment. They’ve guide integrations and an API with applications that is common.

Whether you are a freelancer attempting to incorporate Time monitoring into even a job manager that needs to collate staff member’s time or invoicing applications like FreshBooks, RescueTime will integrate with this.

Disadvantages of RescueTime

Like any software RescueTime is Perfect nor can it be the best fit for everyone. Here’s some disadvantages that I’ve noticed through the years. Desktop Time Tracking Software

But RescueTime’s classes News, research websites and distracting sites’ subdomains.

I can’t use the Get Focused! Performance for almost any Task that requires research (aka visiting a lot of different websites).

Ironically, the time I need smart obstructing Functionality is when I am doing research for a post

There is a fine line between which really is effective and This really is distracting when I am researching. It’d be good to use RescueTime, but the categories aren’t accurate enough for it to operate.

The Main problem is the Block Sites work Is not available in reverse (ie, add certain sites to block). I can only add websites to unblock.

And if I am visiting several sites were blocked by dozen — Adding them becomes the time wasting.

If you are looking for an app that will block Distracting sites — RescueTime isn’t it.